Office of the Historian

860C.01/11–2944: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State

Moscow, November 29, 1944—4 p.m.
[Received November 29—11:41 a.m.]

4550. Department’s attention is invited to Embassy’s 4541, November 28,12 summarizing Izvestiya report on Osubka-Morawski’s speech before Congress of Polish Cooperative Workers on November 25. Following points of the speech warrant attention in connection with present developments in the Polish Government-in-exile.

1.
The Lublin Committee13 apparently places Mikolajczyk and Kwapinski14 in same category.
2.
Osubka-Morawski indicates that Lublin Committee is still prepared to “unite with” Mikolajczyk but as always “only on our platform”.
3.
As far as Embassy has noted, this is first occasion on which Soviet press has contained a reference to Lublin Committee as a “government”.

Sent to Department; repeated to London as 274.

Kennan
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Lublin had been captured by the Soviet armies on July 23. The Polish Committee of National Liberation moved from Chelm (Kholm) to Lublin at the beginning of August, and was frequently thereafter called the Lublin Committee.↩
  3. Jan Kwapinski was a Polish Socialist politician, Vice Premier and Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Shipping in the Mikolajczyk Cabinet. After the resignation of Mikolajczyk on November 24, he failed in his efforts to form a Cabinet.↩